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Column: Ready to roll for what looks like a huge year in sports for Maui

Between the Lines

By Robert Collias 7 min read

It's a time for new beginnings, but then, of course, the week between Christmas and New Year's always is.

We put a little bow on the 2023 Maui sports scene with a fun two-day jaunt with college women's basketball in the Oregon State-hosted Maui Classic at Seabury Hall's Erdman Athletic Center, Dec. 19-20.

Maui County sports ghosts of Christmas past, present and future had to be smiling when they saw OSU team leader Talia von Oelhoffen greet her family -- including Super Bowl-champion dad Kimo von Oelhoffen, a Molokai native -- after a win over Texas Tech.

The Beavers women's hoopsters are headed to the West Coast Conference for at least two years -- along with 15 other OSU sports -- after one final go-round in the Pac-12, which disintegrated around them over the summer months.

"Super special, I mean, obviously given the circumstances we have a chip on our shoulder," Talia von Oelhoffen said of her last go-round in the Pac-12. "And we're going to win it all, last one, best one, so that's the goal, that's the standard. I think we can do it, I think we're ready."

On the Pac-12, Beavers head coach Scott Rueck reminisced a little bit.

"Yeah, that's a great question, I mean it's hard to really imagine not having the Pac-12," Rueck said. "It's surreal. It's like, 'Is this really happening?' It's very difficult for a lifelong West Coaster to imagine a world without the Pac-10 or Pac-12. Or I guess, Pac-8, so we're going to enjoy it. It's been such a pleasure and privilege to be a part of all these years.

"Certain things you can't control, so you just say 'onward' and roll on."

The same can be said about other events on the Maui sports schedule heading into 2024.

It looks to me like 2024 is going to be a huge year in sports for Maui throughout, and it begins with a large bang in the first week of the year when The Sentry kicks off the PGA Tour season at the Kapalua Plantation Course.

The event formerly known as the Sentry Tournament of Champions still has invited every PGA Tour winner from 2023 and now also includes the top 50 FedEx Cup points finishers from this past season. The total eligible is 60 -- 35 are eligible due to PGA Tour wins in 2023 and 25 more through being one of the top 50.

Count on nearly all of them confirming they'll be here when the final field becomes official at noon HST Friday.

With that many players -- it will easily be the largest field here in the 25-year history of Kapalua hosting -- threesomes and the use of two tees to start will almost certainly be necessary.

The PGA Player of the Year and PGA Tour Rookie of the Year awards will be announced here the day before event, on Jan. 3.

The end-of-the-year deadline for the financial agreement between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia will clearly not be met as the Tour recently announced it has opened other negotiations with U.S.-based Strategic Sports Group, led by the Fenway Sports Group.

This is a bunch of rich sports guys -- really, Really, REALLY rich sports guys -- talking about the future of the sport.

Professional men's golf is at a crossroads, for sure, and we can see, perhaps even feel, it happening right before our eyes next week.

The topic of the future of the sport will be asked over and over and over here as The Sentry is played without a defending champion for the second straight year, due to the defections of 2023 champ Jon Rahm and 2022 winner Cameron Smith to LIV Golf -- both bolted before they could get to the Valley Isle to defend their titles.

Consider the fate of Mackenzie Hughes, who moved up from No. 51 to No. 50 on the final FedEx Cup points list when Rahm was officially suspended from PGA Tour play for accepting a $500 million contract to play for LIV Golf.

That makes Hughes, a Canadian, eligible for all eight of the PGA Tour "Signature Events" and their $20 million purses -- the first one is The Sentry -- and moves him into possible territory to make both the International team for the 2024 Presidents Cup and the Canadian team for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Still, Hughes said on Dec. 8 that the game needs to find a way to fix itself, for fans like the folks who will be lining the fairways at Kapalua, many of them there on free tickets provided by the Tour and ServPro as first responders to the Aug. 8 wildfire that devastated Lahaina down the road.

"We need to find a way to resonate with all of you and lead the PGA Tour back to higher ground," Hughes said in a series of social media posts to golf fans, one day after Rahm's departure. "Hopefully, our leadership can make that happen. The uncertainty has been really difficult for us but I remain hopeful."

I wholeheartedly agree and there is no doubt in my mind it can begin right here -- title sponsor Sentry Insurance stands at the head of the list as to why I feel that way.

All that said, it's hard not to look around and marvel at the possibilities for sports on Maui in 2024.

Molokai football will play a full slate in the Maui Interscholastic League 11-player ranks for the first time ever. The Farmers played 11-player football back in the early 1960s, but they didn't join the MIL until 1984 -- since 2010 they have played in the MIL eight-player division and have won the last seven titles there.

Kulanihakoi, the new $245 million high school in Kihei, will almost certainly follow the Farmers into 11-player MIL football in a couple years, perhaps after playing in the eight-player division with Hana, Lanai and Seabury Hall.

MIL football teams have been in the last three Division II state title games and keep inching ever closer to a win there. The Lunas won that crown four straight times from 2016-19 and now play in MIL Division I.

Lahainaluna enters the 2024 football season with 44 straight MIL wins dating to 2016, but Kamehameha Maui appears to climbing closer and closer all the time.

As they look to rebound from subpar seasons in 2023, the Maui High and Baldwin football teams will have to find home fields to play at as War Memorial Stadium is in line to close for renovations for a year after the MIL track season this spring.

King Kekaulike is riding a resurgence to significance in MIL football after a tough decade prior to Na Alii's appearance in the 2022 D-II state football final.

The Kamehameha Maui girls basketball team beat MIL powerhouse Lahainaluna for the first time ever earlier this month and they meet again tonight -- that is a race that will flow well into 2024.

In the spring, Baldwin baseball will look for its seventh state title after two straight runner-up finishes, while several MIL graduates play in college programs and appear ready to make a big splash in the MLB draft in June.

There's a whole bunch more in store for Maui County sports in 2024 that I don't have room enough to mention here, but I can't wait to get started.

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.

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